« Thematic Highlights

Zionism

Ester Golan
Interfaith Encounter Association Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Even if I had gone to America, I already knew then [growing up in Germany in the 1930s] that I wanted to come to Israel, Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel]. I was a Zionist, I was in a Zionist youth movement. And as a young girl, I realized that this was where I could live my Judaism. When I first came here in ‘45 we lived next to Arab villages, to Arab towns, and there was communication, they sold us things, and we sold them things, and there was quite a lot of mutuality. I am grateful to say that all of my children and grandchildren live here and hopefully will carry on doing so for many more generations.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Kobi Snitz
Anarchists Against the Wall Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ You don't have to be an anarchist to be against a Jewish state. A lot of people are against a Christian state in the US but they're not anarchists. I have a quote by Ben Gurion where he's against a Jewish state. He's not an anarchist and everybody considers him a Zionist. He was considered a Zionist when he made that statement. Ben Gurion describes a bi-national state, he says a state that has cultural and educational autonomy for Jews and Palestinians, a two house parliamentary system that prevents one group from dominating the other, and the political system should be such that Jews will not dominate Palestinians and Palestinians will not dominate Jews. That's Ben Gurion, and again, he's not an anarchist and he was considered a Zionist when he made that statement.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Professor Sami Adwan
PRIME (Peace Research Institute in the Middle East) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Although it saddens me to say it, I think that the Israeli political system has yet to reexamine or reconsider the driving concept of the Zionist movement; that of the Promised Land and so on. One of the fundamental reasons for this, that we as Palestinians tend to neglect, is the history of the Jews in Europe. Those experiences continue to cause fear among Israelis today. What happened in Europe - the Holocaust and the oppression of the Jews - still frightens them. This plays a large role in their attention to acquiring military power.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Dimitri Diliani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I'm not losing sleep over the Zionist dream. On the contrary, as a Palestinian, I have suffered because of the Zionist dream. But the situation that we are living in today forces me to think with my mind and not with my emotions. And this is what brings me to the goal of two states for two peoples.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Yana Knopova
Coalition of Women For Peace Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I love this place very much; I think I'm very much a patriot. But I want it to be different, totally. I believe my struggle is motivated by my love for this place. I view the area as my homeland; I've been here for nearly nine years. I think that people here have forgotten that loving your "homeland " is not connected to Zionism. People confuse the terms. The concept of loving one's homeland is equated with Zionism here in Israel. A person can love the place she lives in without being a Zionist and hope it will one day be based on different principles, on justice and equality. That's what I see; I'm very patriotic. It's very relevant for me, but I can't equate it with Zionism. I think we must differentiate between the terms. ”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Adi Dagan
Coalition of Women for Peace, Machsom Watch Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I think that before the state's establishment the goal was to create a normal state for the Jews. From that aspect Zionism served its purpose, it did create a state where Jews live as equal citizens. I think that after a certain point, after Zionism achieved the state's establishment and aliyah, the immigration that brought so many Jews here, and greatly reduced security risks by making peace with some of the neighboring countries, it became an obstacle for normal life here. To me living in a normal country can't include adopting apartheid and racist and religious discrimination.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Dr. Khuloud Dajani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ […]both peoples had lived in this area peacefully and securely for centuries. They had gone through good and bad times together. Unfortunately, the experiences they shared have turned to confrontation today. Colonization and Zionism have caused this situation, not Judaism, in addition to the political variability in the area and in the entire Middle East in the last century. The establishment of the State of Israel and its occupation of the remaining Palestinian Territories, and the competing claims that continue to exist, have caused a tragedy in the area.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Shwanesh Maniov
Seeds of Peace, Children of Abraham Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ My parents always wanted to immigrate to Israel [from Ethiopia]. It was something dreamlike, something no one knew about. Maybe others who grew up in cities and had access to communications knew something about Israel. But for me, for my parents and whoever lived in my village, Israel was a place, nobody knew exactly where. We only knew that there were only Jews there; there were no other peoples there because it belonged to the Jews. There was a temple and a river of milk and a river of honey. All you had to do there was religious work; all you had to do was observe the mitzvot. All I knew about was Jerusalem. I didn't know about anything else, the land of Israel, the State of Israel. I wasn't told about terms such as nationality or religion. Those weren't terms my parents used in their kind of Zionism. There was only Jerusalem and life among Jews.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Rami Nasrallah
International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC) Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Understanding them doesn't mean we have to love them. I don't want to love the Israelis or for them to love us, but there are interests. If we are strong as a society and as an economy, we can be part of the equation, if we are not strong we can't. Therefore what attracted me was how to learn from the Israelis how to build myself, how to enhance our collective intellect and qualifications and how to deal with issues not only based on sentimental considerations. Their return to this land was not based only on sentimental values; they had a complete agenda. Regardless of how this agenda affected me and of the tragedy it caused the Palestinians, it was an effective program. If we want to deal with the Israelis as equal counterparts we can't do it without absolute knowledge of the Israeli side.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ester Golan
Interfaith Encounter Association Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I was 10 years old [when Hitler came to power], and although there was a big beautiful synagogue in the town there wasn't a Jewish school, so I went to a Christian school. One day the teacher came in, I sat in the front because I was so little, so he said, "There's no room for Jews to sit in the front, you have to sit in the back." That wasn't so bad, but I was 10 years old and children still played in the yard at the break, and nobody spoke to me anymore from that day on. The boys went to their Hitler Youth, and the girls to a different group. The Jewish community did all it could to compensate us for that by having more activities for youth in the synagogue, and we went to a Zionist youth movement, which my mother helped to set up. So from a very young age, I was engaged in preparing myself to come to Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and to Palestine.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Dimitri Diliani
People's Campaign for Peace and Democracy Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ Palestinians have a clear national goal: the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Likewise for the Israelis, the Zionist Movement is founded upon the goal of establishing a national home for the Jewish people. The ironic thing is that the two objectives are consistent. The Palestinians agree to have their state along the 1967 border. Israel cannot be a Jewish national home if it continues to have four million Palestinian Arabs living inside it. In other words, Israel cannot continue to occupy us. […] So it is in Israelis' interest to agree to a kind of separation. They have their country and we have ours. And this is precisely our national goal, as Palestinians. So, in principle, there is agreement on a two-state solution. […] However, if a two-state solution is not implemented, Palestinians are going to call for a bi-national state. Continuing to live under occupation is not an option: if we cannot get a state, then at least give us rights as citizens in your state. If this happens, however, then neither the national Palestinian objective nor the Zionist dream will be achieved. So it is in everyone's interest to establish two states for two nations.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Eliyahu McLean
The Sulha Peace Project, Jerusalem Peacemakers, Middleway Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ On some days, like when I was in Baghdad, I felt very Zionistic. I felt that with this much hatred in the Arab world, yes, we do need a homeland, we do need to defend ourselves. When I heard what Israel was doing in Gaza, I felt like an anti-Zionist. I always find myself swinging between both and end up coming back to trying to sort of hold it all.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Nasser Laham
Maan News, Bethlehem Television Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I truly believe that the Israeli people are victims; they are victims of Herzl and Ben Gurion because they told them that Israel is the safest place in the world for them. When they were brought here they spoiled and sullied this place. Israel is now the most dangerous place in the world for the Jews and is the opposite of Zionism. I think that the Israeli people need the Palestinians' help; if we say we forgive them, then the whole world will forgive them -- not because we are very important, but because we are weak and wretched. We are a tiny people, like the Israelis are. The Israelis want to emerge from this cycle but cannot because it is their generals that make the decisions.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Ester Golan
Interfaith Encounter Association Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I feel very, very deeply, consciously Jewish-- Zionist Jewish. A combination of Zionism and Judaism, which is different from the Haredim, who have no Zionist feelings. I certainly believe in having to defend my being Jewish. That's why I was in the army, my children were in the army, my grandchildren are in the army. Because I have a right to live, and I defend that right to live.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Michal Zak
The School for Peace Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I was born in this place; this is my home here. I always took it for granted. Today I say I'm not a Zionist because the term is meaningful for me, but not because it's no longer my home or I don't feel a part of what goes on here. It's just that I'm opposed to it being a Jewish state. I support having a state that exists for all its citizens. So I'm talking about today's parameters, and not the question of whether it should have been established like that or not. Not historically speaking. I think that the Jewish national mission has been accomplished and maybe it couldn't have been undertaken any other way. But I think that to continue to impose Jewish rule in this manner is unjust because it's not democratic. In that sense I feel we need to aspire to change the state's characteristics to become something different.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I grew up outside the Green Line of 1967, though settlement in Gush Etzion began before the State of Israel was established. Lands were legally purchased there, they were barren then and agriculturally-orientated settlements were founded on them. In 1948 Gush Etzion fell and since 1967 the rallying cry of the regional council has been “Your children will return to their own land.” People grow up there with that heritage of clutching to the land, of returning to the settlements, to the lands, to a land that is ours. There’s a path nearby called “Trail of the Patriarchs”, it's the path that Abraham took from Be’er Sheva to Mount Moriah - you are taught to have a religious bond to living there. When you get older it links to having political awareness and naturally to the National Religious Party and the right-wing parties who regard the return to Zion as a historical process of the return of a people to its land. Despite the problem the Arab population living there poses, [this population] is perceived as an obstacle that needs to be faced, but in no way does it suggest that this process – or this "right" - must be relinquished.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Adi Dagan
Coalition of Women for Peace, Machsom Watch Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I think Zionism is an obstacle to normal life here and that's why I'm not in favor of retaining the definition of a Jewish state. I assume there can be a state with a Jewish majority; I'm not opposed to that. I'm not saying we need to get rid of the Jewish majority at any cost. I think that my aspirations have changed, and that I want this to be a normal country where equality isn't sanctioned by religion and for there not to be an ever present census - how many of them and how many of us. I feel I'm always being reminded I'm Jewish; if it isn't in the religious sense then it's in the ethnic sense and I'm very uncomfortable living this way. I want to live somewhere where nobody will care about my religion. That was also Zionism's aspiration: a normal life, people not being conscious which group they belong to, that's what really went on in the Diaspora.”  [Source in Complete Interview]

Shlomo Zagman
Realistic Religious Zionism, Mosaica Portrait »
Interview Highlights »

“ I had opinions I grew up with and I didn’t really ever examine them for myself; I accepted a viewpoint that was created by someone else. My conclusion is that the price that we’re paying to hold these lands is so high, it’s actually at the cost of Zionist existence in Israel. I think it’s worthwhile [to cede them] from a practical standpoint, not from a humanist or forbearing approach.”  [Source in Complete Interview]